ETERNITY'S END sample chapters of new book
by Dan Bivens
Summary: Find out what happens when the last 8 vampires must face the end of the only world upon which such as they had enjoyed, until now, immortality. This is a newly released vampire book, which can be found at Amazon books


Bivens/ETERNITY'S END 37

PROLOG

Immortality sucks.

Especially when you've been around for over five billion years and know that, maybe a few more centuries from what little was left of Now, you would no longer Be.

To know that, because you are a vampire, sired by such when you lived your life as a Human ages ago, you are completely and utterly incapable of doing as those Humans, by the billions, had done long before their sun began to swell in its final death throes. A sun that, from the moment of my Making as said vampire, I had not seen for Lo these many billions of years. A sun that had laid claim to the Earth by boiling away almost all its surface water. Ponds, lakes, oceans. Leaving only what little water remained far below its gradually "melting" surface.

Down where we, the few remaining vampires, had made our "home". At least a mile underground with deposits of lead and iron helping to keep both increased solar heat and radiation from penetrating. Not that such was necessary for our Undead existence. Our only weakness was the sun's purifying light. No, such was necessary to ensure the continued generational existence of what few Humans we had managed to capture prior to the rest of humanity slipping free of not only Earth, but the solar system itself.

Captured Humans whom would provide continued sustenance, in the form of blood, down through the centuries and millennia and, now, eons. Humans whom were kept in what would have been called, in so many ages past, "gilded cages". Although they really were nothing like "cages".

In actuality, they were more like vast underground "homes" filled with all manner of necessities as well as lots of luxuries. Such was determined to make our Humans complacent and, to some degree, happy. And, after one generation gave way to another and another and another, these Humans came to view our vampiric need to bite and drink from them as being as normal as the artificially-created foodstuffs which was necessary in keeping them alive and relatively healthy. Foodstuffs created via salvaged computer-controlled machines created by the Humans of around four-and-a-half billion years earlier, when they were at their peak of technological development...and also just prior to escaping Earth and, then, the solar system...in order to eradicate hunger amongst its teeming masses. Masses that had, at such a point in Human history, long since set up thriving colonies on Mars, as well as some of the moons around Jupiter and Saturn.

At any rate, our captive Humans knew no hunger nor no discomfort. Again, save for the biting and feeding of those of us whom had outlived all the other vampires that had once populated Earth's surface by the tens of thousands over a period of time measured in the millennia. From tens of thousands to, now, only eight. Myself, Soilaz Prochnya. My mate, and, as far as such applies to the Undead, my Love, Lucinda Cisco. An incredibly beautiful woman with haunting blue eyes and reddish hair that seemed to blaze upon her head. Her shapely, for any century, body was always accentuated via the very tight and very revealing clothes she loved to wear. Especially so since becoming a vampire. I suppose I was attracted to her, not only for her beauty, but for her ability to multitask. For the way, no matter the situation, she always seemed to "land on her feet", as the Humans of old might say. Still, beneath the surface of this ages-old beauty, there was a definite anxiety. One which has been enhanced considerably since the swelling sun forced us to take captured Humans and move deeper and deeper beneath a lifeless surface.

Lucinda was followed by those other vampires, whom have long since accepted me as their absolute ruler. Especially so since it was because of me that we eight have survived at all!

There was Evander Schutzenhofer. Once a heroic soldier during Germany's Nazi years of the 1930s. Still sporting a head of thick, jet-black hair and eyes of sky blue. Almost the poster child for Adolf Hitler's "Aryan Master Race", save for the fact his hair was not blond. And although he probably never harbored any anti-Semitic hatred, he was nonetheless forged in the horrible war that arose, then, a little later, sired by another of the vampiric race on one of many battlefields whereupon his life's blood had been spilt prior to actually dying, and was one of the most impressive vampires I had ever come across.

Evander even developed what could be called "vampiric spiritualism". Of course, it took the realization that immortality was only as eternal as the sun about which a planet, such as Earth, orbited to bring forth such quasi-religious insights. During the earlier years of his vampiric rebirth, Evander grew a very thick and very long jet-black beard. One which contrasted beautifully with his stark-white skin. And, unlike me, whom still wears his Soviet uniforms from my days as a still-Human officer during the early years of the 20th Century, favors once-expensive clothes collected over the stretch of centuries that long ago preceded the last vestige of the Human race prior to their abandoning of a doomed-by-swelling sun Earth. Sometimes I wondered if Evander was trying to impress the rest of us. If so, such was lost to the billions of passing years we had, so far, endured.

Then there was his begrudging mate, since such was as essential as Human blood to keep us as sane as possible for beings no longer truly "alive". Velia Gresham was flamboyant in both dress and demeanor. Clearly a lover of extreme sports, back when sports of any kind still lived on the world above. Clearly someone whom craved excitement and, from what I have been able to discern since the eight of us took up subterranean residence, such was one of the main reasons Evander took her to his coffin whenever the equivalent of "day" was sensed so far above our multi-billion year old underground domain. And, though she seemed shorter than Evander whenever the two stood side-by-side, Velia was actually quite tall. Not as tall as me, since I was the tallest of the eight, but quite possibly a bit taller than Evander. Which, judging from what I remembered about Germanic thinking from both before and during the Nazi years, might just have been a problem for the choosing of a vampire mate.

Next there was Jason Geam. A young man whose height was diminished a bit by his constant ready-to-pounce posture. Compared to such as Evander Schutzenhofer, definitely the more dapper, save for his long, thick beard, of us all, Jason was what used to be called a vagabond. But coming from someone whom has worn his ex-Soviet military officer garb since first being "turned", such a derogatory declaration hardly seems fitting.

Still, Jason was a handsome vampire, and was quite presentable even with such a horrendous lack of fashion sense. But what was most impressive, even to the rest of us, was the largeness of not only Jason's mouth, but the vampiric canines. If male vampires worried as much about fang size as Human men used to in regards to penis size, we would most definitely all demonstrate a definite sense of inferiority. Were that the case, it would be Jason Geam whom stood as undisputed leader of we eight, rather than me.

Kristel Binder wound up the female vampire mated to Jason. Largely because she was extremely flirtatious, and had the knack of almost always getting her way through believable flattery. Fortunately, being Russian from a time when such carried more than its share of pride, I was virtually immune. I sometimes believed that Jason's always ready-to-pounce stance, still being maintained billions of years after the eight of us became determined to exist, even if the others died via the drastically increased sunlight whilst lying in coffins still on the surface, more or less, had a lot to do with the flirtations of his mate. However, as appealing as Kristel could make herself, even down to instinctively knowing how to coordinate her clothing to accentuate her femininity, she still bore more than a little body order. A leftover, no doubt, from her years as a "grunge" groupie in Seattle, Washington at a point whereby such as the "grunge rock" group Nirvana had just gone national in appeal.

Still, it was a little strange for a member of the Undead to have b.o.

Then there was Ottilie Erickeson. A vampire whom hailed from some long-obliterated point in or around what used to be called London, England. Such easily deduced by his very Cockney accent. Though not a vagabond vampire, like Jason, Ottilie had evidently acquired more than a little fashion sense during his eons of existence, prior to the destruction of all surface structures harboring any clothing at all. Such seemed offset by the fact his completely gray hair was longer than the hair currently sported by the vampiric women of our little group. Ottilie was extremely likeable due, largely, to his penchant for agreeing with everyone, no matter what the topic. Definitely the most easy-going of the eight. Ottilie's only stain of character was his difficulty in remaining still for more than ten minutes. Most definitely a case of ADHD while still Human. It's just a little odd and off-putting seeing such in a vampire.

Celsa Yafei-Browne was a descendant of those darkly mysterious women of Middle Eastern descent. Dark hair, dark eyes, and dark complexion. Or as dark as skin could be once one had been brought into the ranks of the Undead. Celsa was, for the lack of any other option, the vampiric mate of Ottilie. She was quite lovely, even though she did have a hint of masculinity to her mannerisms, leading one to believe she may have lived a life, pre and post-vampire, as a lesbian. Since there now only remained eight of us, and since everyone else had already paired up ages ago, she became the coffin-sharing consort of Ottilie Erickeson. The fact Ottilie had a distinctly Cockney accent clashed with the definitely Southern accent of someone whom, prior to being sired by a no-longer-existing vampire, was born and raised in the rural area of Tennessee. Then, according to what we all had long since come to know about her, Celsa, after the death of both parents due to the contraction of cancer that proved not to be treatable, she moved to the large Southern city of Atlanta, Georgia. There she fell into a lifestyle supported by her prostitution on the city streets.

It would be such that exposed her to a fanged member of the Undead and, as expected, introduced her to an immortal life-style that, after billions of years, wound up with her as part of our very small group. And it would be her prostitution-learned "abilities" that no doubt made it easy to attract Ottilie to her side. Curiously, Celsa Yafei-Browne appeared a little taller than she actually was, due to her unconscious ability to carry herself with more than a bit of self-importance. Plus she could put up with Ottilie's hyperactive nature and, in some instances, help to calm him down. Something especially appreciated even when what was left of night claimed the Earth's surface for a few hours so that we remaining vampires could at least go up and look out at what stars could still be seen through an ever-thickening, again thanks to a swelling sun, cloud cover.

Being Undead, it was especially nice that we felt none of the remaining heat brought about by an enlarged sun and runaway greenhouse world. So long as we regularly fed upon our long-held descendants of previously captured-by-us Humans, nothing, save for the overly intense sunlight during longer and longer days, could harm us.

Still, to have no more world to explore. No more Human cities to visit. No more nighttime activities in which to participate. It makes a vampire, like me, silently ask a question that might very well be on the Undead minds of the rest.

Of what use is immortality upon a dying world?

THE VAMPIRE TEN COMMANDMENTS

1. ALL 100 HUMANS, AGES 13 UP, SHALT GO RELATIVELY UNHARMED, MEANING NO KILLING OR TURNING OF HUMANS, FROM ONE GENERATION TO THE NEXT, UNTIL SUCH TIME AS EARTH'S SUN DESTROYS US ALL.

2. ALL MEMBERS OF THE EIGHT, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, SHALT ONLY FEED TWICE PER "NIGHT" FROM ANY TWO HUMANS, SO THAT NO SINGLE HUMAN SHALT BE FED UPON, BY ONE OR MORE VAMPIRES, DURING A SINGLE 8-10 HOUR PERIOD.

3. ALL HUMAN MALES AND FEMALES OF MATING AGE, BEGINNING AT AGE 13, SHALT BE SECRETLY GIVEN ANTI-CONCEPTION MEDICATIONS VIA THE FOODS PRODUCED VIA HUMAN-ENGINEERED FOOD-CREATING MACHINES. THUS COMPLETELY CONTROLLING THEIR ABILITY TO REPRODUCE.

4. WHEN IT IS DEEMED TIME FOR ANY OF THE FIFTY HUMAN COUPLES TO CONCEIVE, IN ORDER TO REPLENISH THE HUNDRED DUE TO DEATHS BROUGHT ABOUT BY ADVANCED AGE, A SPECIAL INJECTION SHALT BE GIVEN TO TEMPORARILY COUNTERACT THE ANTI-CONCEPTION MEDICATIONS (SEE RULE #3).

5. SUCH INJECTIONS SHALT ALSO INCLUDE SEX-SPECIFIC CHEMICAL COMPONENTS, SO AS TO CONTROL THE REPRODUCTION OF OFFSPRING TO BEING ONE MALE, BORN FIRST TO EACH HUMAN COUPLE, AND ONE FEMALE. NO MORE, NO LESS.

6. AS TO THE COUPLING ORDER OF THE MAJORITY OF HUMANS, THOSE WHOSE SKIN COLOR AND SUBSEQUENT RACIAL BACKGROUND IS A MIXTURE OF "WHITE" RACES, INCLUDING THOSE OF IRISH, SCOTTISH, JEWISH, AND RUSSIAN ANCESTRY, THEY SHALT SEEK OUT MEMBERS OF ANOTHER FAMILY'S SONS & DAUGHTERS WITH WHOM TO MATE. WHILST THOSE WITH DARK SKIN, SUCH AS HUMANS OF AFRICAN, INDIAN (EASTERN & NATIVE AMERICAN), AND ARABIAN ANCESTRY, SHALT RECEIVE ADDITIONAL, SPECIAL INJECTIONS, AS WELL AS SPECIAL MATING RULES, AS FOLLOWS IN RULE #7.

7. THOSE OF THE DARK-SKINNED RACES, AS STATED ABOVE IN RULE #6, SHALT REPRODUCE ONLY WITH THEIR SIBLINGS, AFTER SPECIAL SECONDARY INJECTIONS, ALONG WITH THOSE FOR CONCEPTION, PREVENT THE POSSIBILITY OF GENETIC MALFORMATION FROM SUCH SAME-FAMILY COUPLINGS. SUCH IS NECESSARY IN ORDER TO PRESERVE THE UNIQUE TASTE OF THEIR BLOOD OVER THAT OBTAINED FROM THE LESS-PURE, BLANDER BLOOD OF THE "WHITE" RACES.

8. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALT ANY CHILD BROUGHT ABOUT BY ANY CONTROLLED-VIA-INJECTIONS HUMAN MATING, BELOW THE AGE OF 13, BE BITTEN, NO MATTER HOW STRONG A VAMPIRE'S URGE FOR THE SWEETER TASTE OF SUCH "INNOCENT" HUMANS.

9. THE PUNISHMENT FOR ANY VAMPIRE VIOLATING THE ABOVE 8 RULES IS BANISHMENT TO THE DYING EARTH'S SURFACE TO AWAIT THE RISE OF IT'S SEVERELY SWELLING SUN'S BRIGHTER-THAN-EVER RAYS OF LIGHT. WHERE, NATURALLY, SAID BANISHED VAMPIRE SHALT DIE AGONIZINGLY FROM EXPOSURE TO SAID SWOLLEN SUN.

10. IN THE EVENT OF RULE #9 BEING IMPLEMENTED AGAINST ANY OF THE EIGHT REMAINING VAMPIRES, THAT VAMPIRE'S MATE SHALT BE BANISHED TO EARTH'S DYING SURFACE AS WELL, SO AS TO KEEP THE NUMBER OF VAMPIRE COUPLES EVEN. PLUS, SUCH AUTOMATIC BANISHMENT OF A VAMPIRE'S MATE, AS WELL AS THEMSELVES, FOR SAID RULE VIOLATIONS, SHALT CREATE AN ADDED INCENTIVE TO ADHERE TO SAID RULES.

FEEDING TIME

SOILAZ PROCHNYA - VAMPIRE

"Are you still staring at the stars, Soilaz?"

Though it has been an age since we first became mates, Lucinda's voice still carried within it a beauty equaled only by her sensuously clothed body. I tore my own eyes away from the twinkling stars, few though could be seen through the ever-increasing cloud cover, and stared straight and sure into Lucinda's beautiful blue eyes. Her ruby lips forming a smile that easily hid the fact my mate continued to harbor an inner anxiety that only grows with the passing of another day. Another month. Another year. Another decade. Another century.

With an always present hint of a Russian accent, yet long ago abandoning my own language for the English I would use throughout most of my unbelievably long life, I turned from where I was sitting and replied with a reciprocal smile.

"Lucinda, my love. Come sit by my side. We should, indeed, stare at the stars while we can. One day, sooner than we wish to expect..."

It really wasn't necessary for me to finish such an obvious statement. Especially so to one whose anxiety was more noteworthy whilst on the melted earthen surface than whenever we were deep underground.

"Dearest Soilaz", she said with a sigh, even as her smile remained. "How many nights have we done so? Only to allow the terrible truth to intrude, just before we returned to our world below? You know that the thicker the clouds become, the fewer stars that can be seen..."

Suddenly, her smile melted into a worrisome frown that betrayed her innermost anguish, as she continued with a little less vampiric love in regards to me being her Eternal Mate.

"I grow less and less grateful for any stars in the darkness beyond. To think that, in a few short centuries, the sun of this world will gobble it, and everything within it, like a child gobbling up the last piece of birthday cake...well, it only deepens my sense of supreme loss over the fact we...you, me, and the others...shall soon cease to exist."

Even though vampires can't cry, I could sense the sadness swelling within my mate. As I stood to hold her close, I could also see it in her strikingly lovely blue eyes, as they sought out mine. And as I wrapped my arms about her, I could feel her trembling. Since vampires do not feel the cold, and since this lifeless planet was trapped in a constantly rising heat wave because of the swelling sun...

"Lucinda, my love," I said to her in the most romantically calming voice one could manage under these End of Time circumstances, "there is no need to fear absolute obliteration. We have all lived far longer than anyone could imagine. We have lived numerous 'lives' that had taken us around the world innumerable times. We have evaded those whom felt duty-bound to kill vampires...and succeeded in doing so with all the others. We eight are the best of our lot. The strongest. The most cunning. If it were at all possible to survive the destruction of Earth by its sun, we eight would most assuredly accomplish it. Unfortunately..."

It was not necessary to complete that statement. We had already discussed such endlessly whilst remaining far beneath the nearly molten surface of a planet that has been our sole home for eons. In a way, it was most fitting that our "home" would grant death to the Undead that had defeated such for countless centuries.

Finally, she was no longer trembling. A smile slowly returned to so beauteous a face, framed by flaming red hair. Lucinda would once again speak in the loving tone the two of us had come to appreciate almost as much as having a steady stream of Humans to feed upon in the wake of a Human race that had long ago left Earth in order to answer the siren call of the stars. Her exquisite voice touching some supposedly dead part of me that shouldn't feel anything at all. Yet which does.

"You're right, Soilaz. You're right. I don't know what I would've done had the two of us not become mates. Had I found myself utterly alone beneath the dead surface of this once living planet." She shrugged in a matter of fact fashion, then said solemnly, "I would've probably ascended to the surface and await the rise of a sun that was many times larger than in the past. A sun whose brighter-than-ever light would've delivered me into oblivion. Instead, I've had the great good fortune to feel love for the first time since my demise and rise, as vampire, such an unimaginably long time ago. Thank you...my dearest."

Just as our lifeless lips were slowly nearing, as though some weak-yet-persistent magnetic force were pulling our faces together...

"Are you two aware that the sun will rise within the next five or six minutes?"

Lucinda and I halted in mid-kiss, then slowly looked toward the source of that voice. A voice that had interrupted part of the only real point for continued existence. The still exceedingly pleasurable experience presented by the prospect of sex.

"We appreciate the warning, Ottilie," I finally said, even as his ADHD seemed as strong as ever, judging by how he constantly shifted back and forth on his feet, whilst his hands constantly opened and closed at his sides, and his eyes darted from us to the hazy horizon in the East, where the swollen sun would soon arise. "I only wish you had come a couple of minutes earlier. It would've been...a bit less distracting."

"Sorry," said the only hyperactive vampire I had ever known. Then, turning to descend into our far underground lair, "We need to get back before the sun once again fills the cloud-choked sky. We'll just barely make it, if we go now."

"By all means, Mr. Erickeson", I said with a hint of bemusement remaining in a long Undead body, "lead the way."

At that, with Ottilie in the lead, and with Lucinda and I holding hands whilst walking side-by-side, the three of us swiftly descended via the stair-like rock formations from many millions of years before the currently melting surface conditions of the Earth. In a span of mere minutes, just shy of what would find a swollen, dying sun swallowing whole the greenhouse skies once more, we found ourselves over a mile belowground. Back in our protected, for a few more centuries at least, subterranean lair.

Where, once again, we would find ourselves in an enormous space shorn out, both naturally as well as purposely by our own Undead hands, that was the equivalent of an entire mid-sized city like those which once dominated the ruined land above. We needed that space. Even vampires could go a little stir crazy, if we were cramped into a small space with no room to move about. Not to mention our Humans, whom, even now, stared at us, from the makeshift windows of their underground "cage", itself as large as a dozen sizeable houses, like those that were once found in upper-class suburbia. A look of both worshipful awe in regards to beings whom they had come to perceive as god-like from one generation to the next, as well as a sense of sheer horror born of the fact that, daily, we would bite and feed from them.

One could come to pity them...were it not for the hunger for blood that constantly force-fed our baser instincts. Instincts that surpassed the irrefutable fact that we eight were, most definitely, Undead.

"'bout time to take a bite, ain't it, Soilaz?"

That voice, so distinctively Southern, came from Celsa Yafei-Browne. An accent that was so unexpected coming from a face that hailed from generations of Middle Eastern peoples, whom eventually settled in Tennessee so very, very long ago. You'd almost think such as she would've lost the accent after literally billions of years. But such was not the case with the rest of us. With me. My Russian accent was as noticeable now as it had been the day my global travels, following my rise from near-death to become vampire, had taken me to England and, after that, the United States of America. Just as our physical ages were effectively frozen at the moment of our vampiric rebirth, so too were our accents, or lack thereof.

"Yes, Celsa", I readily replied, even as the pangs of hunger gradually replaced my feelings of love and sexual desire for Lucinda, still standing at my side, even though we no longer held hands. "One at a time...we enter, choose a Human from which to drink, then leave for the next of us to step through the locked metal door. As always, make absolutely certain you do not drain them dry. Nor let them die before finishing your feeding. As they are our only source of food, we cannot afford to lose even one. And we definitely can't risk turning one. It would only complicate our current situation. And that is definitely something we do not need. Okay. Celsa, you may go first."

A sickly twisted smile formed on Celsa's exotically dark features, even as her fangs made themselves visible in the midst of an animalistic snarl. Saliva already glistening upon their razor-sharp tips, as Celsa gradually stepped through a locked-from-outside door that would lead into the world of the Humans. At least, the world we created for them thousands of Human generations ago. A little bit of luxury created by as wide a variety of interior furnishings as their long-dead ancestors would've had upon the still-living surface of their world. Including, of course, the Human-made mechanisms necessary to keep them supplied in all the foodstuffs, solid and liquid, to keep them from starving or from even having to endure true hunger. We eight vampires experienced more in the way of hunger than they ever could. Or would. Thanks to us.

After Celsa passed through the opened, then closed and locked, to be on the safe side, door of the Human habitat, I took in, with a single scanning glance, the rest of those whom have looked to me for guidance for longer than five billion years.

All, including my lovely Lucinda Cisco, were a lot less calm and collected, in ways only accomplished by long-lived vampires, than mere minutes before. All were caught up in the growing hunger for Human blood that announced itself to us once or twice in a twenty-four hour period. Six or seven of those hours spent resting in coffins elsewhere in the city-sized underground lair. Just as our Humans slept in beds, arranged in barracks fashion, some eight or nine hours out of twenty-four. Such cyclical urges were as much the nature of the Undead, as it was the Humans.

Even Humans whom were born in captivity the way their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great grandparents, all the way back to a time, many millions of years earlier, when we eight, knowing that no other vampires still existed, as well as knowing the Earth was slowly being killed by a dying sun, selected a predetermined number of remaining Humans, not yet having left for interstellar space as the rest of their race, to breed in order to feed upon their precious blood. Or at least enough to keep us alive for one more day.

One more eon.

HOLLIS TARTAGLIONE - HUMAN

Here we go again. Time for these creatures to feed upon our blood.

But, according to my parents, such has been The Way for far longer than anyone could even hope to remember. Definitely so since I, Hollis Tartaglione, turned thirteen. And, before that, it was so for my father, also named Hollis, as was his father, grandfather, and so forth back to the beginning of collective memory for us Humans. Not to mention my mother, whom was named Kiana Rowald, just like this generation's Kiana, whom was mated with Asher Wege. As was their parental namesakes, their grandparents, all the way back to that self-same beginning of our collective memory.

"Don't y'all worry none," said the one named Celsa Yafei-Browne, she of the strange accent that, somehow, made her seem a little less intelligent in comparison to the others, most especially their also strangely accented leader, Soilaz Prochnya. "It'll only hurt for a few seconds. Then agin, y'all ought'a know that by now."

Then, Celsa bares her fangs upon nearing one of the younger members of our group, the eighteen year old Trinity Murin. Whom, unlike the rest of us, always seems to be overly active all the time. Even when she sleeps. Trinity tosses and turns with her hands and face twitching in time to such slumbering restlessness. Strangely, these fanged creatures, whom, our ancestral stories, passed down from one generation to the next, have yet to age and die, as we Humans do, don't always bite and drink from the same member of our Human number. Just as we Humans use the machines to create a variety of foods and drink during moments of hunger and thirst, which come at least four times per day, these ancient and immortal beings find that same semblance of variety by not biting and drinking from the same Human all the time.

Even as Trinity stood stock still, turning her head in such a manner so as to expose a neck already showing the scars of previous fang penetration, I couldn't help but marvel at how obedient we, and our parents, were when it came to each of these eight creatures unlocking and entering through that heavy metal door, much like the heavy metal walls, leading in and out of the luxurious multi-room residence we knew from birth to, seventy-to-ninety years later, death. At no time, as far back as such vocally-conveyed tales were told and retold, have we Humans tried to fight off these pale, fanged beings. It was only reasonable to assume that once, long ago, our Human forefathers did, indeed, resist. It was also only reasonable to assume that, likewise, those Human forefathers gave in to the inevitable. That attitude of compliance, coupled with the irrefutable fact that these eight were many, many times stronger than any one of us, meant that it was best to simply accept the situation. Wherein, twice per day, every day, they would enter to bite and feed upon eight of us at a time. Eight Humans in the evening and eight more later that night, as far as "evening" and "night" pertains to the assumed passing of days, out of exactly one hundred Humans. Fifty males and fifty females. Hm. It was always more than a little curious that, with each new generation born to each coupled male-female Human pairing, such as myself and Trinity Murin, each pair would, in time, give birth to two children: one male and one female. True, the sexual union that has existed for over a year between myself and Trinity, almost ten years my junior, had not yet brought forth any children, we both knew that, inevitably, we would have one male, then, perhaps a couple of years later, a female. Two offspring whom would, eventually, take our place. And the same was true with each and every other Human male paring with Human female. Perhaps it had something to do with the periodic injections these immortals gave us just prior to not only conceiving, but in producing the proper sex, first a male and then a female, to take his or her place in a perfectly balanced group that would, over time, always number a hundred. Thus, in general, maintaining the one-to-one ratio of male Human to female Human.

One could only ponder such things in the ignorance granted unto us by fanged immortal blood-drinking beings whom gave us nothing, in all the luxuries that surrounded us, including gaming machines and machines that played what I'd heard called, via my father and his father before, "movies", so as to impart anything at all resembling true knowledge. Such being, quite clearly, the sole property of these eternal eight.

"Uhn," Trinity grunted in a barely audible tone, her face contorting slightly from the sinking of fangs into the flesh of her voluntarily exposed neck.

Now, curiously, Celsa Yafei-Browne, she of the exotically dark-though-still-pale skin, affording her a beauty that was not lost on even a Human male like myself, had a curiously dainty manner of feeding. From memories involving Celsa sucking blood from my own myriad bite zones, ranging from both sides of the neck to shoulders to forearms and wrists, after the quick, but short-lived, stabbing pain involving the penetration of razor-sharp tips of longer-than-Human canines through skin and tissue, including veins, Celsa simply did not denote anything remotely ravenous when it came to feeding. Almost as if she did not wish to waste a single drop of blood from the one she was biting, which, at one time or the other, meant each and every one of our group of one hundred Human adults, as children under thirteen were never ever bitten.

Such could not be said for her immortal compeers. Especially so for the one called Jason Geam. For his mouth and, unfortunately for the poor Human he bites, his fangs were unusually large. So much so that both seemed incongruous when compared with his overall physicality, which was more or less normal. That is, normal for such pale-skinned, apparently eternal beings. And, as one would expect, once Jason sank those scarily large, and long, fangs into neck, shoulder, forearm, or wrists...well, let's just say, of all the blood-drinking beings whom would pay each and every one of us, eight at a time, a visit in order to drink from us, Jason's was the most painful. The most dreaded. The most feared.

Then, even as Trinity seemed to weaken significantly, something visually discerned by the near-buckling of her knees, as each of the eight had done time after time after time, Celsa Yafei-Browne stopped suckling from the fresh neck wound made by her fangs, and backed away toward the still-locked-from-outside metal door. Other than the residual blood that would leak from any such small, roundish lacerations, Celsa, once again, succeeded in being the neatest of the immortals awaiting their singular chance at choosing one of our larger group to be bitten. Whilst the rest of the eight seemingly stood guard beyond the locked-from-outside metal door to our huge habitat.

"Trinity?" I said just loud enough for my mate to hear, but not so loud as to be easily heard by the eight. Or so I believed. "Are you okay? Do you need to go to the bed barracks and lie down?"

"N-no," my freckle-faced mate stammered in weak reply. "J-just let me s-sit in one of these communal area chairs for a few minutes. Th-then I'll get s-something to eat and drink from the f-food machine."

"Wonder which will be chosen next, Hollis?" pondered Asher Wege in a hushed aside meant only for me and his mate, Kiana Rowland. Asher was a very serious man whom was only a few years younger than me, making him the second oldest of the current one hundred. All the rest ranged in age from thirteen to twenty. And all because, unknown generations ago, our parents, bearing the self-same names as ourselves and our soon-to-be-born children, were birthed into this strange, controlled world before any of the others. And so forth, and so on.

Finally, I answered, "I don't know, Asher. But whomever it is, they are about to be unlucky enough to be on the biting end of the big-fanged immortal called Jason Geam."

A split-second after such issued forth from my mouth, Jason turned to approach, huge mouth agape and huge fangs glistening with saliva, me. All I could do was tightly close my eyes, whilst obediently exposing one shoulder, as both sides of my neck needed a couple of more days before protective scabs dropped away, wherein more smallish round scars would join the rest.

And, thus, I prepared myself for the jarringly real prospect of being bitten by someone nowhere near as dainty as Celsa Yafei-Browne.

JASON GEAM - VAMPIRE

"Ahhk!"

That loud sudden sound, following my sabertooth-like biting into the shoulder of the Human called, as were all his forefathers, Hollis Tartaglione, was as welcome as the distinctive taste, as far as I was concerned, of his Italian blood. Now, supposedly, it wasn't that any one nationality of Human tasted significantly better than any other, but every time I chose Hollis to feed upon, it was akin to such as him choosing Italian food over, say, Chinese. When I was still very much Human, in the dimness of the distant and dead past, back when centuries were identified by dual numbers, such as the 20th, prior to my being turned by a vampire, I was, indeed, quite partial to Italian. As a result, I have probably bitten and drank from this Human more than any other. Such was visibly obvious in the larger-than-usual fang scars on not only parts of his shoulder, but parts of his neck as well. Along with, of course, the more normal-sized fang scars by other members of the eight.

The seconds seemingly passed unusually slow, whilst the Italian blood flowed past a tongue that could still taste, even though it, along with my entire body, was, technically, dead. To end up in a stomach that, though as technically dead as the rest of me, was solely designed to rapidly process said Human blood in order to deliver it throughout my Undead body and, of course, into my Undead, but still somehow functioning, brain. Whereupon, again during the seemingly slow passage of seconds that such a feeding cycle was taking, my mind, or at least what was left after being made vampire, raced back across the countless centuries and millennia to a moment that took place during the later years of World War Two. Not long after we Yanks liberated Italy from the fascist rule by not only Adolf Hitler's Nazis, but by Benito Mussolini. A time of such celebration that a uniformed Human such as I, along with my unit of fellow United States soldiers, enjoyed not only drink and sexual relations with willing Italian women, but the eating of true Italian foods. Speaking for myself, I became quite gluttonous of all three.

Even now, with eyes closed and my memory of that pre-vampire period returning to recollected life, more or less, I can still smell the seemingly endless array of Italian foods taking up every square inch of a outdoor wooden table from which we, the American soldiers that were a part of the downfall of dictatorship within that lovely land, enjoyed one heaping plate after the other...

"Slow down, Sarge," I remembered Corporal Dewitt Mauer saying with that childlike smile we'd all come to appreciate. Dewitt was that one seemingly eternal youngster, not just in appearance, but in a constantly upbeat attitude, no matter what horrors of war we may be facing, every World War Two unit seemed to have. "You're gonna explode with meatballs and pizza, if you keep up that pace."

The other privates and PFCs in my unit laughed heartily at Corporal Mauer's quip, in between voracious fork-fulls of an Italian feast that ranged from an aperitif that encompassed everything from a glass or two of campari to some hot and cold antipasto, through the first and second courses of risotto, gnocchi dumplings, polenta with sopressa and mushrooms, pasta with spicy meatballs and, naturally, pizza pies. With various dolce, or desserts, along with several coffee concoctions from which to choose. The whole thing being topped off by digestivos liquors and liqueurs, like grappa brandy, the more bitter amaro, all the way to the dark, walnut-based liqueur known as nocino. Thus, by the time we hardened-by-battle soldiers were finished, we were in a stupor brought about by both fantastic food and senses-dulling drinks.

Even our resident eating-and-drinking "machine", Private Artie Browler, nearly seven feet tall and weighing in at a muscular 379 pounds, reached a point where he could neither eat another bite of what seemed to be an endless array of foods nor drink another drop of alcohol. A fact not lost on the rest of us.

"What's the matter, Artie?" jokingly asked my unit's resident comedian, PFC Oliver Loerwald. "Have you finally filled up that bottomless pit of yours after gobbling up most of our rations, a stray goat or two, and, now, this great spread? I thought you could've polished all this off and still bellow for more! You must be getting weaker as the war winds down."

Now, ordinarily, the man-monster, Private Artie Browler, would've manhandled whomever dared to poke such fun at him, no matter the surroundings or situation, but, with PFC Oliver Loerwald, he simply let out a thunderous laugh, before replying, with that stutter that sometimes made itself known from this mountain of muscle, "You c-crack me up, Ollie. You ought to b-be on t-television or somethin'."

Every single time I heard Private Browler speak in that slight stutter, which wasn't that often, as Artie Browler rarely spoke, I marveled at how such seemed so incongruous coming from such a monstrously large person. Sort of like, decades later, could be said about the great boxer, Mike Tyson, in regards to such a high-pitched, squeaky voice coming from a mass of muscle whose punches seemed to shake any squared circle he deigned to enter.

But no one else ever made fun of Artie. No one dared. Not even me, and I was often referred to as the toughest sergeant in the Army. Especially during those ending years of World War Two.

At any rate, since there didn't seem to be a shortage of attractive Italian ladies, more than willing to further satisfy our desperate desires for physical pleasure, all of us disappeared into what buildings remained intact from the ravages of war. Especially so whilst under the dictatorial rule of Benito Mussolini, even as a dark and starry night finally fell. I was no exception. Especially with so much liquor and liqueurs topping off the overwhelmingly tasty foods I, like everyone else in my unit, had consumed in such quantities.

Even now, I can, after all the eons of time that have passed between now and then, recall the black haired beauty with as beautiful a face as anyone could imagine. Even more beautiful, though I would never say so aloud, than my eternal mate, Kristel Binder. And although I spoke no Italian and she spoke no English, I can still vividly recall what she said in such sensuous whispers...

"Sei molto bella per un soldato Americano," she softly said, even as she hungrily helped me shed my dirty outer jacket with the triple stripes signifying my rank as an Army sergeant. "Non credo che abbia mai incontrare una persona così bella e forte. Anche ora, non posso sentire il vostro cuore e il tuo sangue battenti la brusca."

"I don't know what the hell you're saying," I remember mumbling, even as I aided her in stripping off my shirt and, lastly, removing my pants. Or, at least, pulling them, and my skivvies, down to the tops of my muddied Army boots. "But I damn sure like where this is going."

At some point during our lovemaking, which occurred after she, somehow, disrobed far faster than me, almost as if her frilly-though-casual blouse-and-skirt combo simply vanished, I learned her name: Karmen Vallenti. But, even at the moment I reached ejaculation point whilst still inside her...

"Oh, yeah. Yeah!"

Karmen had produced, unseen by me, whilst still reveling in my prolonged male orgasm, as well as still being physically inside her, fanged canines that she swiftly sank fast and deep into the side of my neck...

"Ahk!"

Even though I truly tried to push her off me, Karmen Vallenti demonstrated what could only be described as superhuman strength. Preventing me from rolling her off in order to find freedom from her neck-puncturing bite. Then, in less time than it seemed in my memory, I went absolutely limp as she continued sucking blood through the wounds sustained by long, sharp canines. Fangs which I definitely hadn't noticed when first she led me away from the outdoor table, where I had gluttonously consumed food and drink, to end up in a bedroom of a nearby, still intact home. Then again, I was so drunk with said food and drink, not to mention her damn near incomparable beauty and sensuality, that she could've been readily displaying said fangs, and I would've never noticed.

As weakness and, I instinctively knew, death gradually began to claim me, my last thought, as Karmen stopped sucking my blood and straddled me, whilst we were still sexually engaged, my fading view of my darkened surroundings, especially her, painted what, to most normal men, would've been a positively horrific picture. Her blood-dripping fangs were made all the more frightening by her feral expression that was stained, about the mouth and chin, with even more of my blood than could be seen on those illogically long, and ridiculously sharp, canines. It was clear that, though I had survived various battles against Nazi soldier units, though a number of American soldiers, whose names I could not now remember, were killed by bullets fired from Nazi MP40 submachine guns, as well as M1 carbines and MG42 machineguns that never once found me, I knew, without a doubt, that I was now dying.

Some dark part of my mind tried to tell me that, if I did have to die during this Second World War, at least doing so during such satisfying sex with such an exquisitely lovely Italian lady, whom, quite clearly, was, believe it or not, a vampire, was, most definitely, the best way to go. However, Karmen Vallenti evidently had other plans. Plans which did not include letting me die.

Even as my vision began to blur and darken, I remember seeing Karmen use the tip of one of her fangs to tear viciously through the flesh of her own right wrist. Thus allowing a significant amount of thick, dark-red blood to flow forth, spilling all over my unclothed chest, as she slowly lowered that bleeding wrist to my lips. I don't know how, but I somehow knew to latch on like a newborn babe, and suck long and deep. Allowing the blood of an honest-to-God vampire to quickly enter me. To flow through me. And, inevitably, to save me from certain death. Or, rather, to allow me to continue "living" as the newest member of the Undead.

As a renewed energy, far greater than any I had ever known in my former Human life, explosively coursed through me, I rolled Karmen over, still sexually penetrating her, and began anew the incredible sex that had preceded not only my previous release of orgasmic ejaculate, but actually surpassed any sexual activities I had ever known. Both before entering the U.S. Army and after. As great as sex had been before, it was now, as an Undead being, at least a thousands times more pleasurable. For both of us.

After at least two more hours of intense intercourse, whilst the two of us lay in one another's embrace, I was astonished to suddenly understand Karmen's words, as if she were speaking the English I grew up with whilst a Human growing up in the relatively modest city in Hanover, Pennsylvania.

"As you now realize", she said with a noticeable accent that betrayed the fact she was still speaking in Italian, "I am vampire. And now that I have drained nearly all your blood, then allowed you to drink deeply from my own, you are now vampire. The only way you can be killed now, Jason Geam, is by either a beheading...or the purifying rays of the daytime sun. Do you understand?"

Having watched old Bela Lugosi movies, as well as, like most Americans, being exposed to the mythical methods of hurting, at the least, and destroying utterly, at the most, a member of the blood-drinking Undead, I, quite naturally, asked Karmen about them. Curiously, though I knew I was speaking in English, now that I was a vampire like her, and quite probably because she was the one that turned me, Karmen understood what I was saying as easily as I now understood her.

"What about garlic? Crosses? Wooden stakes through the heart? Silver?"

As she allowed a sensual laugh to roll past still stained-with-my-blood lips, Karmen turned her head toward me and said, "Those are all tales of the ignorant, Jason. Made up by frightened Humans to help give them at least a little hope of being able to bring ultimate death to the Undead. Nothing can kill you, other than decapitation or sunlight. Not that you can't feel pain from a sharp wooden stake or silver-edged knife. You shall. But such wounds would be instantly healed, and the pain they produce instantly forgotten. You, my handsome Sergeant Geam, are now...immortal."

It was shortly after that incredible revelation, which distracted my mind for a number of slowly passing minutes, that she whom was my Lover and Maker had gotten dressed, and seemingly disappeared in order to return, so I surmised, to a hidden coffin before the rays of the morning sun could seek out her preternatural flesh. Which meant, naturally, that I, too, would have to find some safe place wherein I could "sleep" before dawn. But, as I had at least an hour or so before the sun's rise, I decided to sate my thirst for blood before seeking such shelter. And the closest and easiest to feel the bite of my own fanged canines were those with whom I had fought so hard since our push through the Nazis in order to liberate Italy.

The most logical choice was the largest and most robust of those whom were under my immediate command: Private Artie Browler.

Moving with the stealth of a mountain cat, I eased into the bedroom wherein lay an unclothed, and sexually satisfied, sleeping Italian woman with her head resting upon Private Browler's muscular chest. A smile on his face that told the tale of a satisfaction such as we had hoped for during several weeks of life-or-death struggle on the battlefields leading...here. Once standing over someone whom, when I was still Sergeant Jason Geam, Human, I found a more-than-adequate ally in combat, I found myself now seeing him as the source of sustenance that Jason Geam, vampire, sorely needed before his dreamless slumber.

"Uhk!"

"Ayii--!"

In the single second it took to sink my unusually large razor-sharp fangs into the neck of the muscular, and definitely stronger than most Humans, Private Artie Browler, so as to drink deep the totality of his more-than-ample blood supply, I also grabbed the neck of the rapidly awakening woman in order to snap her neck in mid-scream. Allowing her now lifeless body to drop back to the disheveled bed, even as a swiftly weakened Private Bowler gradually grew limp long enough to allow me to finish what I'd started. My thirst for Human blood now completely quenched, thus completing my final indoctrination into the ranks of the immortal Undead, I sought out a point beneath a building wherein to "sleep". Once located, I quickly used my own superhuman strength, now that I was a vampire, to dig out a makeshift grave in which I could lie, after pulling the many pounds of dirt on top of me. Thus, I became completely protected from the purifying rays of the sun by both the building above me, as well as the deep grave with pounds of dirt on top of me.

After which, once my men were awake that sunny morning, they would find, to their horror and disbelief, that Something had drained Private Artie Browler, and had snapped the neck of the lovely lady with whom he had enjoyed a night of passionate lovemaking. By the time I "awoke", about a half-hour after the sun's setting, allowing for the return of blessed, for a vampire, darkness, my unit had, rather hurriedly I would imagine, left this Italian village in its rapidly receding wake. Leaving with a strange mystery that held out no hope of solution. As for me, I began my reign as a blood-drinking creature of the night in such a manner that eventually encompassed most of the European theater, during those last days of World War Two. Eventually, I would come across other Undead blood-drinkers during such travels. However, I can recall none of whom by name, and most of their faces no longer exist in my multi-billion year old memory.

Which brought me back to the here-and-now at the End of TIme. Using my inordinately large fangs set in a similarly large mouth to drink just enough from this willing Human male to sustain me until the eight of us retired to our coffins for the hours that the swollen sun ruled the cloud-choked skies beyond the more than a mile of iron-and-lead dominated rock shielding our subterranean lair. Back to an Undead life that sorely fell far short of the lives I'd led long before Earth's sun began to swell and forced the bulk of humanity into interstellar space.

If I had my way, I would, occasionally, drain dry one of these hundred Humans, rather than merely sip enough to keep my Undead body animated at all. But such would go against the rules set forth, ages ago, by the oldest vampire and leader of the eight: Soilaz Prochnya.

EVANDER SCHUTZENHOFER - VAMPIRE

Just seeing the Human blood dripping from the tips of Jason's very long, very thick fangs, not to mention the ample coating of Human blood about that unusually large mouth, sent shivers of Undead hunger throughout my being. It almost seemed as though my own, normal-sized, for a vampire, fangs were throbbing in my mouth in much the same manner as my still-working penis often throbbed in my quite stylish trousers. Which usually happened immediately prior to taking my mate for more millions of years than I could hope to properly comprehend, Velia Gresham, to the coffin which the two of us shared during those hours that, instinctively, we Undead spent whilst the swelling sun dominated a cloud-choked sky directly above our underground locale.

I was more than hungry this time. I was downright ravenous. From all I'd learned about the rest of the eight, I was probably the most sadistic in terms of biting and drinking from a hapless Human. And that sadism, strangely, had nothing to do with being a soldier in the Nazi armed forces, but was no doubt some deep-seated personality trait that had lain more or less dormant until that fateful night, on one of many battlefields in the European theater during World War Two, whereupon my bleeding-out Human life was eternally replaced by a blood-drinking vampire life.

"Who's next?" asked Soilaz Prochnya, still wearing one of his USSR officer's uniforms, something not even I had done after being turned by a long-dead vampire, whom had both killed and granted me "rebirth" at the self-same moment.

"Me," I heard myself say, as my right hand shot upward and outward in a dimly remembered semblance of the salute any Nazi gave during those years, now lost to eons of time passed. It was almost as if, for a scant second, something from deeper within my ages-old darkness had spoken using my mouth. Perhaps such stemmed from my gradually growing, over the past few hundred million years or more, belief in what Soilaz had long-since sarcastically, so I suspect, called "vampiric spiritualism". In truth, I merely came to believe that, after literally billions of years of Undead life, not to mention that, out of tens of thousands of immortal blood-drinkers, only we eight have managed to survive, perhaps we might have developed something akin to, but not exactly like, "souls" of some sort in much the same manner as these Humans. So far, I am quite alone in such beliefs. Not even my immortal mate, Velia Gresham, had displayed any overt likelihood that she might share in such a "spiritual" viewpoint regarding the eight of us. So be it.

"Very well, Evander," Soilaz Prochnya's repulsively, at least to a former Nazi soldier whom had fought, more than once, against such as he near the then borders of the USSR, said with a nod. I could, both now and countless other times over the past five billion years, visually pick up at least a hint of such Soviet-versus-Nazi hatred within his dark eyes. Then I turned, stroking my thick, long black beard with one hand, and, once the dense metal door was unlocked and opened, stepped into the domain of our herd of Humans.

It was time to choose one...and drink.

I heard the resounding sound of the metal door clang shut, and its lock being engaged from outside this multi-house sized habitat of a hundred Humans from which I could choose to bite and drink. If we were allowed to choose from the children whom had not yet reached the beginning age, from the standpoint of Soilaz's rules, of thirteen, then we would have more than a hundred from which to pick. Then again, if not for Soilaz' rules, we could actually kill one of these Humans, from time to time, by literally drinking them dry. Ah, well. I had long since made peace with the fact Soilaz Prochnya's rules, even though he was once a Soviet military officer, and had probably killed many of my fellow Nazi soldiers during the latter years of World War Two, were as necessary for our survival as this city-sized subterranean lair.

With my fangs fully exposed in a snarl that seemed to present itself each and every time we eight prepared to feed, saliva no doubt dripping from their razor-sharp tips, I scanned the seemingly endless, though very much a finite number, of Humans in order to choose one over the other for this pre-coffin "sleeping" feeding. Unlike some of the others, such as Jason Geam, mine had less to do with the taste of one Human's blood as opposed to another, and more to do with which of these hundred Humans, including the thirteen year olds, denoted the most fear. I suppose my sadistic side arose to be much stronger during feeding times than at any other.

That's when my Undead eyes sought out the wide-with-terror eyes of a dark-skinned teenaged male, belonging to the one and only Human couple called, long, long, long ago, African-American, during those interminably "politically correct" years that had gripped the United States of American during quite a few decades, from the Seventies throughout the end of the 20th Century, wherein such as I had spent so many nights stalking the streets of the huge, old cities, such as New York and Chicago, amongst many, many others. Though that barely remembered racist part of my Nazi Germany upbringing believed such to be "providence", which was an easy assumption for the only vampiric member of the eight to hold out hope for what Soilaz Prochnya called "vampiric spiritualism". The fact of the matter was that there were plenty of white-skinned Human couples, whilst those of the darker races, such as these distant descendants of Mother Africa, each made up a single, solitary family unit. The plain truth of such a situation was because, during our mad dash to capture the first hundred Humans before they all vanished from the soon-to-be-dead Earth, whose sun was noticeably swelling in size, heat, and radiation, there simply were no more than a couple of such as these to be brought beneath the ready-to-boil surface of a withering world. And, since we eight craved variety in our "food", exactly as these hundred Humans, we made certain to have at least two, male and female, of the non-white races, whom once dominated a now-dying planet in great pre-exodus numbers.

As to this night's feeding selection...I knew this thirteen year old black boy's name to be, like his equally black-skinned father, Ezequiel Hill.

Yes. It would be his blood that would help to rejuvenate my Undead self whilst lying in a coffin shared, both out of some semblance of "love" as well as a definite need for intense sexual activity, with Velia Gresham.

"Do not struggle," I said, via an always present German accent to my English, with a snarl, my fangs starting to throb again over the impending moment of biting and drinking. "This will be over more quickly, if you do not struggle."

"Y-yes, s-sir, M-Mister Evander, s-sir," the trembling little Human stammered, using my first name as my last, no doubt due to the fact he, like many others, have trouble pronouncing my German name of Schutzenhofer. At least not well enough to risk possibly upsetting me, as if such truly could, prior to me sinking my fangs into their flesh.

Speaking of which, the instant said fangs pierced the slightly scarred, by a few other bites from my fellow vampires since this black-skinned lad had turned thirteen barely a year ago, neck of the offspring of these two, lone African-American Humans, whom were worriedly looking on from a short-but-safe distance away, as this boy's father, whom was also named Ezequiel Hill just like his father and grand-father, and so forth for countless generations, showed at least a little potential for railing against someone like me feeding upon his son and namesake. Of course, as had happened uncounted times before, the elder Ezequiel Hill was no more ready to offer resistance than any other over the billions of years that had elapsed for not only these generational Humans, but for we eight eternal vampires.

As I relished in both the palpable fear that dominated the trembling thirteen year old, in whose neck my fangs have deeply penetrated its dark skin, along with the tissue underneath, to pierce a vein or artery, I also relished in the rush of blood past my Undead tongue to, quite rapidly, course through me. A sensation that was second only to the sex I had with Velia. Not to mention all the sex I had had with not only vampire women, but Human women, whom I would then feed upon, throughout the pre-swelling sun, pre-evacuated Humans world.

And, not surprisingly, such satisfactory sensations, whilst slowly drinking deep of young Ezequiel's blood, extended to that point in time when, as a battle-weary "war hero", as some would speak of me long after I "died", I met he whom would swoop down upon my fallen form, upon one of those battlefields over which, as a Nazi soldier, I had fought so fiercely for not only my German pride, but for my life and the lives of those fighting, and dying, alongside me. Men in the self-same gray-green Nazi soldier uniforms as myself, whom, after so many ages that took me, as one of the Undead, around the world several times, I could no longer recall. But I most definitely recalled...him.

His name was Sabastian La Rimore, and, whomever had Made him, had done so during this former Human civilian's sixties, as what little hair remained on his head, mostly on the sides and back, had turned pure white in those pre-vampire years. And though I struggled against this creature brandishing the fangs ancient folklore had identified with the blood-drinking Undead, my strength was sorely waning due to severe blood loss from bullet wounds. Plus, I knew I was dying. And, still being a fairly young man in his mid-to-late twenties, I definitely did not wish to die. So, even though my fanged, pale-skinned attacker no doubt had the same superhuman strength as each of us eight have known since being turned, I allowed my limbs to go completely limp. Basically beckoning Sabastian La Rimore to bite me. To suck away my blood. And, with any luck, perhaps grant me the "gift" of the Undead in the process.

Now, at the time, I had no idea whether this old-looking vampire, whom had apparently been quietly stalking the Nazi soldiers fighting so hard to regain ground that had been lost to the American and British Allied Forces over the past couple of days, would bestow upon me a continued physical life as another of tens of thousands of vampires in existence around the Earth. He could have merely drained me dry and left me to the cold, cruel hands of the death that had already claimed so many of my uniformed compeers.

Fortunately for me, this balding, white-haired, wrinkled vampire stopped just short of completely sucking away my body's blood, then used one of his razor-sharp fangs to rip open one of his wrists in order to allow me to drink the thick, dark-red blood flowing forth. To drink of his Undead blood in order to grant me that self-same Undead "life". Then, even as such swiftly sealed those bleeding bullet holes in my uniformed torso, which also pushed aside any sensation of pain via said bullets still inside, I sat upright in the mud as a nighttime rain began to beat down upon the battlefield. At least enough to momentarily suspend the back-and-forth combat between the Nazi soldiers and the Allied soldiers.

I remember rising to my booted feet. I looked at my hands, which now had the pallor of the dead, and marveled at how I could still command them to open and close and flex. Then I turned my still-helmeted face upward, in order to feel the large droplets of rain pounding against Undead skin. My blue eyes easily focusing upon the dimmed-by-nighttime rain clouds moonlight coming from what I had already seen, whilst lying in a growing pool of my own blood from a bullet-riddled body, to be a full moon. One that looked like a sizeable silver coin hanging against a starry backdrop.

That was when my ears, suddenly dozens of times more sensitive to sound than my Human existence prior to this fateful night, picked up the faint voices of seriously wounded soldiers, both Nazi and Allied, from a distance of nearly a kilometer away. Such was when, as a sinister, even sadistic, smile spread across my face, my tongue touched the tips of longer, as well as sharper, canines. Fangs. Fangs of one whom was now a vampire. An immortal member of the Undead. Immortal, so long as I fed on the blood of the living.

With a running speed I had never before found possible, even under heavy enemy fire, I quickly came upon the first of many wounded-and-dying Humans. It mattered not whether they wore the same uniform as me. I still dropped to my knees and sank deep my fangs in order to drain dry one, then two, then more of those suffering from a wide variety of wounds derived from enemy gunfire, as well as those blown apart by grenades tossed across the expanse of now muddy, and bloody, ground over which we had fought.

"Nein--!"

"Noo--!"

"Bloody hell--!"

German blood flowed, like dark red rivers, down my throat, as did American blood, and, finally, British blood. Each filling me with a strength and vitality, combined with the fact it was still the middle of a rainy night, that elicited a roar of power via an open, fanged, blood-soaked mouth, that would quite literally carry me through from one "lifetime" to the next. Living not only for decades beyond what should have been my death, but centuries, then millennia, then ages. All of which, somewhat sadly in comparison to the rich "lives" I had established at points all about a still robust world, had led me to an End of Time point. An End of Time point where, unlike the ceaseless centuries before, I was biting and drinking from Humans in order to simply live, as an Undead being, from one day to the next. All the while, awaiting the moment, a few centuries from now, according to our leader, Soilaz Prochnya, when our eternal existence would be forced to surrender itself to the final growth spurt of the sun that would see the dead Earth utterly, completely consumed. Which meant, for me, that the "vampiric spiritualism" I began to believe a few million years earlier would, hopefully, prove to be at least a little true. If so, then that which was me, especially since becoming vampire, would, somehow, continue to exist in some other plane of perpetual existence.

Even for the Undead.

EZEQUIEL HILL - HUMAN

"F-Father..."

It took more self-control than any Human man should ever have to display to watch helplessly, as this blood-drinking immortal, Evander Schutzenhofer, his fanged canines sank deep into the flesh of my son's neck, a sight I had witnessed a few times before, though such hadn't lessened the sickening sight's impact, whilst sucking away some of my namesake's blood. Not enough to seriously harm him. Nor anywhere near enough to kill him. That wasn't the problem. It was the look of pained panic on my son's face, as his eyes sought out mine to ask what, at the moment, he could not with his voice, for fear of angering an eternal being whose fangs were currently deep in neck tissue and vein.

He was asking-without-asking for me, his father, to either make the pain and overwhelming fear go away...or make the immortal source of such to stop what he was doing. Unfortunately, as was the case with my own father, also named Ezequiel Hill, and his father before, and so on for uncounted generations, there was absolutely nothing that I could do. Save for standing, my mate, and the boy's mother, Sarah Anacker, clinging tightly, pleadingly to my arm as, I noticed from the corner of my eye, tears streamed down her light-brown cheeks. Ragged sobs catching in her throat, as she desperately tried to keep such sorrow, whilst watching our thirteen year old son being bitten by this blood-drinking being with the long, thick black beard and pale skin.

Suddenly, I felt the profound need to close my eyes, tightly, and allow my mind to drift back to my own post-thirteen year old moment whereupon one of these eight had chosen me as their supplier of blood.

Even as the eternal being, one of the females, with the flaming red hair and very blue eyes, called Lucinda Cisco, fangs fully displayed, slowly walked amongst the hundred, myself, my father, and my mother, all bearing the exact same names as I, my mate, and my son have now, standing in a tight trio as far back from the point of entry as possible. Vainly hoping, at least as far as I, the thirteen year old boy, was concerned, that, just maybe, the fanged immortal might just overlook us for one of the others. Such was what our generation, and probably all the generations that had come before, had been reduced to: caring only for ourselves, rather than feeling anything for anyone else, out of the hundred Humans, to fall temporary prey to a fanged "kiss" from one of the eternal eight.

But my hopes, and probably the hopes of my parents, were quickly dashed the instant Lucinda's incredibly blue eyes had locked onto the dark-brown of my own. Which widened even further with a fear I had never, before that first of many moments of being chosen for providing liquid food for these immortals, truly experienced. It was just the "invitation" Lucinda Cisco needed.

"Father...?" I remember half-asking, although my dark eyes were glued to those of blue, whilst a widely smiling, fanged canines glistened with saliva, Lucinda strolled straight toward me.

"I'm sorry, son," my father stated, as if the words had to be forced past a lump formed by a combination of feelings ranging from sadness to subdued, strictly out of fear, rage. "Try to let your mind wander, when it happens. Look into my eyes, and hold it. Try to remember that this is something all of us, not just you, have gone through and will continue to go through until old age claims our lives."

"Y-yes, Father."

That was the last words to leave my trembling lips, as the sharp-but-short-lived piercing pain on the side of my neck signaled the apparently natural, at least for every generation of Human leading back beyond the dim memories of each, act of choosing, twice per "night", someone upon which to feed. So be it.

Although it probably only took a couple of minutes, five at the most, the ordeal, now more emotionally terrifying, especially for a thirteen year old's first time, than anything at all painful at such a post-penetration point, it seemed to me, the boy, that such was taking so long a time that I had come to believe that every last drop of blood was going to be sucked away, before the one called Lucinda Cisco sated her thirst. When she finally finished, pulling her razor-sharp fangs from the flesh of my neck, even though some residual blood leaked forth, requiring me to place one hand tightly over the circular wounds in order to prevent such from occurring, Lucinda slowly stood straight and tall, her fangs dripping with my blood, and her lips and chin coated in same, before closing those bloody lips just prior to turning and leaving the way she came.

At which point, no longer frozen in fearful obedience to beings, blood-drinkers though they may be, whom were clearly better than we mere Humans, my parents gathered me up in a tight embrace of loving apology. As I clutched even more tightly to them.

"I'm so sorry, son", almost cried my father, whom I had never ever known to shed even a single tear from the moment, at age one or two, my memories completely formed, as the truth of his greater than expected strength was demonstrated in that hug of fatherly love that immediately followed in the wake of my first, but certainly not last, experience of being bitten and lightly drained by one of the eight.

"It's alright, Father", I remembered lying, desperate to save my Father from a shame that, decades later, with my own thirteen year old son, I was now forced to feel. Of course, in my Ezequiel's case, this was most definitely not his first time of being fed upon, it was still part of those first few times since he had reached the ripeness of being a thirteen year old Human at the mercy of eight fang-bearing blood-drinkers. "It's alright."

And now, as Evander Schutzenhofer halted his suckling of my son's neck, quickly pulling razor-sharp, blood-coated fangs from still-bleeding bite wounds, which my son, exactly as I had done as a young boy, and continued to do as a man, just as quickly covered them and pressed with that one hand, turned to exit via the single locked metal door, 'twixt our domain and theirs, and exited with his long, thick black beard dampened by what little blood had escaped his feeding lips.

"Was there ever a time," my son asked as the seepage of blood, via evenly spaced circular wounds, finally stopped, "when we Humans didn't have to fear the feeding periods of such beings?"

An innocent question from an innocent child. One that each of the hundred had asked, aloud or within the confines of our own minds, at least a dozen times. One that held out no hope of an affirmative answer to comfort us or to give us, as either individual or group, any reasonable sense of optimism.

"If there ever was", I answered softly, with an inherent wave of self-guilt threatening to choke off the weakly spoken words, "it has never once been spoken about for as far back as such passed-down stories, from the first hundred to the present, exist."

Strange. That was exactly what my father had once told me.

It would seem that the sick cycle continues.

LUCINDA CISCO - VAMPIRE

I exited the Human habitat, the heavy metal door being loudly closed and locked once again, although not even a hundred Humans stood a chance against we eight vampires. First, they have no idea that, shy of the purifying light of the sun, especially one so swollen at the end of its stellar life, the only way they could kill any or all of us was through decapitation. Any and everything else would simply wound and hurt for all of a moment or two. Second, they literally had nowhere in which to escape. Even though the area occupied by we eight was, indeed, the size of a city, it was still quite finite, with very few places for the Humans to hide. Most especially a hundred of them...with children, both the thirteen year olds from whom we were allowed to drink, as laid out in the ages-old rules first set up by my mate, and our leader, Soilaz Prochnya, and younger. Third, should these unaware Humans make a dash up the makeshift rock stairway leading up and out onto the surface over a mile above our heads, they would die almost as swiftly as would any of us in the light, and, for Humans, the heat and radiation, of a swelling sun.

Of course, should the latter scenario happen, we vampires would die, slowly but surely, due to a total lack of living Human blood from which we must consume, even though it be a small amount compared to what each of us, separately, used to drink during a long lost pre-swelling sun past that is now merely dim memory.

"As often as I have done so", I heaved, as a Human might after consuming a tasty gourmet meal coupled with an equally delicious wine, whilst returning to my eternal love's side. "I can never stop relishing in the sweetness that seems so unique to a thirteen year old Human caught 'twixt childhood and adulthood. Mmmmmm."

I could see a ghost of a smile play upon the lips of my lover of five billion years. Soilaz was not one to publicly, though that word barely applies to the fact that we eight have been practically, and voluntarily, entombed with one another, no matter how huge our underground lair may be, for eons of time, express his emotional connection to me. Thus, such as a smile was always downplayed to a point where he was perceived as the vampire leader whom was in absolute and complete control. Most especially during our feeding times.

"Kristel", he finally said in such a forceful-yet-somehow soft tone to Kristel Binder, the eternal mate to Jason Geam, with a sharp directional nod of Soilaz's head toward the currently locked metal door separating the eight from the hundred. "It is your turn to feed before we retire to our coffins."

"Thank you, Soilaz Prochnya", Kristel said with a tone that easily displayed, as did her graceful smile, her honest sense of subservience, at least a little, to the one whom had brought us all together at just the right moment, just as the sun's swelling was boiling away surface waters, as well as the near-complete evacuation of all Humans, save for the original hundred we eight had managed to bite and capture, in order to establish this subterranean "home" in which we would live out our immortal lives for what few centuries remained of existence prior to that self-same swelling sun consuming the entire planet.

Even as, just after the brief unlocking and opening of the heavy metal door to the Human habitat, a now fang-bearing, via that vicious snarling scowl that seemed so commonplace amongst vampires, Kristel Binder left our small number for the considerably larger group of Humans within, my mind raced back to that moment, so unimaginably long ago, wherein I, Lucinda Cisco, had been turned by a particularly sadistic blood-sucking vampire in the midst of one of the largest, if not the largest, cities in the world: New York City.

Times Square, to be exact. I was one of many thousands whom had turned out to watch the crystal ball drop on New Year's Eve and, thus, herald in not just a new year, but a new century. The 21st Century, to be a bit more precise. Yes, in the last half-minute remaining, after a long night of partying with friends, both male and female, in a number of clubs and straight-out bars, with that huge crystal ball still perched, precariously, it seemed, atop the shaft-like structure over which it would slide down during those final seconds, she whom would be my Maker had stepped to my side. A bit closer than necessary, as I noticed her...and her incomparable blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty.

"Having a good time?" she asked with a sensuous half-smile, and a voice as sultry as one could imagine, especially with so much noise from the teeming crowds celebrating the end of a century and, as many might come to view it, the end of a millennium.

"Uh, yes", I responded in a voice both loud enough to be heard, as well as with a breath heavy with the apple martinis I had drank throughout the last night of the 20th Century. "My name's Lucinda. Lucinda Cisco."

"Good evening, Lucinda", she said with a slight hint of a foreign accent that defied one's ability to connect it to any particular country outside the U.S., "my name is Corrine Denooyer. And I have been looking for a way to truly cinch such century-ending celebration."

As her blond hair fluttered in the nearly-midnight breeze wafting through Times Square, and as her blue eyes sought out my own, much as a stage hypnotist might seek out the eyes of an audience member whom would be made to do all manner of embarrassing things before the rest, I found myself quite innocently, as far as experiencing any sort of sexual attraction to another woman, no matter how lovely, asking, "What did you have in mind, Corrine?"

Though her lips never parted, for such would've revealed the fanged canines within, Corrine Denooyer nonetheless let a broad, as well as slightly sinister, smile spread upon her enchantingly attractive facial features. Even as, without speaking, she directed me away from the crowd in which I had been standing, or, rather, swaying due to the influence of the apple martinis consumed in such substantial amounts a bit earlier, as well as leaving my friends, also alcoholized and hampered whilst awaiting the drop of that grand crystal ball...

"I find you exceptionally beautiful, Lucinda Cisco", I remember Corrine saying in a voice that seemed almost musical, as her enticing eyes continued to stare so deep into mine that it almost seemed as if she were peering into my very soul. "Your ethereally bright red hair. Your barely innocent blue eyes. The flush of the flesh of your cheeks. The suppleness of your female form. Yes. You are quite a find."

I wanted to speak. I wanted to pull away. Especially when her hands, whose painted fingernails, I now noticed, were not only long, but had sharpened ends, firmly grasped my shoulders. But I could do nothing but continue staring straight into her equally blue eyes, and remain perfectly still. Even as Corrine gradually leaned forward, her luscious lips, glistening with both bright red lip gloss and the saliva of someone especially hungry or thirsty, clearly aimed right at the side of my neck. A neck which I, for some reason I could not then understand nor control, I exposed to her. Then it happened...

"Ahk--!"

A sharp, momentarily painful piercing sensation, not only of the skin of my exposed neck, but the tissue and, yes, vein beneath, sent a shutter throughout my body. A shutter not unlike the moment of orgasmic release, when lucky enough to go to bed with a man capable of holding back his own instant of ejaculation long enough for me to achieve mine. One that, I'm almost ashamed to admit, even to myself, created an orgasmic release far greater than any I had ever experienced during actual sex since entering adulthood in the Big Apple many years earlier.

"Uhhmm...yes."

By the time Corrine Denooyer, whom it was now quite clear was an actual vampire, finished sucking away most of my body's supply of blood, her nearly claw-like hands dropping me to my knees the second she no longer gripped me by my shoulders....

"S-so...w-weak..."

Without another word, and with one of two blood-dripping, my blood, razor-sharp fangs ripping open one of her wrists, her own thick, dark-red blood freely flowing forth, I soon found myself thirstily drinking said blood, the blood of a vampire, in order to, somehow, replace much of mine and, thus, take me out of the slowly-dying realm of the Human into the forever young and beautiful realm of the Undead.

Before I could speak with her further, especially so as to ask the numerous questions that explode into any new vampire's forethoughts, Corrine Denooyer was gone.

At almost the same moment that the huge crystal ball was slowly dropping, as thousands of voices shouted, "five...four...three...two....", I had reemerged with a hunger I had never before remembered having, even during those times when I dieted to lose a few pounds in order to fit into a slinky little party dress, such as I was wearing tonight. Whom better than one of my party friends for my first feeding as an immortal member of the Undead.

"...one...Happy New Year! Yeaaaaaa!"

Even as the male member of my little End-of-the-Century group of half-drunken club-hoppers, I think his first name was Gary or Jerry or something similar, shouted such along with thousands of other voices throughout Times Square, and as the brightly flashing crystal ball sat flush atop a huge streaming sign that flashed "2000" over and over and over...

"What the f--?"

His reaction to my now-fanged canines being displayed in a viciously snarling set of gloss-painted lips came not only too late, but the continued cheering and various other New Year's Eve noises easily drown out such a scream. Allowing me to, under the guise of kissing his neck, and, quite likely, giving him his first "hickey" of the New Year, bite deep and drain away more than enough of his warm, tasty blood to place him at death's door. By the time anyone determined he was lying on the sidewalk dead, rather than in an alcoholic stupor, like a few others, I would be long gone.

At least, long gone from Times Square. I would, however, spend half-a-Human lifetime, although such was nothing to my new Undead existence, setting myself up in Manhattan from a variety of activities that not only supplied me with the money I would need to exist in such a seemingly affluent style, but the blood I needed to nightly ingest to do more than merely survive.

Such as what I, and the other eight, had been reduced to doing the moment an End of Time scenario dominated the planet upon which we, as earthly vampires, were incontestably trapped. Ah, well...at least I had lived more luxury-laden "lives" than these poor, ill-informed Humans upon which we had been preying for five billion years.

VELIA GRESHAM - VAMPIRE

"Velia...?"

I gave Soilaz a nod of anxious affirmation, wrapped up in more than a little desperation, considering I was growing weaker and weaker from lack of recent feedings, prior to returning to my coffin with my eternal mate, Evander Schutzenhofer. Then I promptly stepped through the metal door that had been briefly unlocked and opened. Next, as it clanged loudly in my overly anxious wake, thanks to the equally dense metal walls of this huge Human habitat for the hundred, I stalked straight into the midst of those from whom I, like the other members of the eight, could choose twice, but only twice, nightly. I wasn't at all surprised to see a hint of fear dancing in their eyes, and in the ever-so-slightly twisting of their facial features. Most especially, when my hungry gaze locked, even if for the briefest of instants, onto mortal eyes that would quite quickly pull away, or even become downcast. Just what a member of we vampire masters might expect from our multi-racial Human "slaves", for lack of a better term.

I could also feel that pre-vampire part of me, from a life that had existed all those countless centuries ago, which held out so much nervousness that a breakdown, when I was still Human, when I was prostituting myself in Atlanta, Georgia, became the end-result. A breakdown that had placed me into an upscale psychiatric institution, also a haven for drug and alcohol abusers seeking rehabilitation, in order to ease me back to some semblance of normalcy. Complete with a short list of "psych meds" meant to make damn sure a second breakdown, after being released into that rat race of an American city known the world over as Los Angeles, would be far less likely. After all, I had been trying my damnedest to become a regularly working actress. But the only acting jobs offered to me consistently, and which I consistently turned down, were in the porno industry. Such stressors, combined with superficial "boyfriends", whom cared only for what they could get out of me, sexually and otherwise, only added to the inevitable breakdown.


End file.
